Human rights, peace activists split on
Kosovo
By PAMELA SCHAEFFER
NCR Staff
Talk of humanitarian
hawks and militaristic doves filters through debate over
Serbia and Kosovo, a sign of what leaders of some U.S. peace organizations say
is uncertainty about what position to take over the war in the Balkans.
Some groups have scheduled or proposed demonstrations, teach-ins,
vigils and prayer services to protest the NATO bombing campaign. Yet in the
early stages of the aerial assault against Yugoslav leader Slobodan Milosevic,
several analysts noted an uncharacteristically sluggish response from antiwar
groups traditionally opposed to the U.S. war machine.
Faced with harrowing television images of refugees fleeing Serb
forces, pacifists and human rights activists -- familiar partners in opposing
war -- sometimes find themselves at odds.
Amid the debate, one pacifist who actively defies the U.S.
sanctions against Iraq proposes training armies, but of a nontraditional kind
-- peace armies that would take risks similar to those taken by armies of
soldiers in attempting to disarm and calm hostile situations.
Noting the absence of strong, united opposition to the recent
bombing of Serbia, Jonathan Broder of MSNBC.com asked in an article in
early April: Where is the antiwar movement? Where are the left-wing
demonstrations, protests and peace vigils that historically have flowered when
American forces have gone off to war in foreign lands? Broder asserted
that the peace movement has been largely missing in action since
the air war in the Balkans began.
In European countries, too, the specter of the Holocaust prevailed
against pacifism and anti-NATO sentiment. In England, Germany and France, for
instance, former pacifists and doves turned into what some labeled
humanitarian hawks as reports of genocide against ethnic Albanians
galvanized support for a bombing campaign and even for ground troops.
Confronted by genocide
When you are confronted by genocide and mass human
suffering, you cannot sit passively with your hands folded and ignore the
killing of innocent civilians, said Joschka Fischer in an interview with
The Washington Post. Fischer, a founding member of Germanys
pacifist Greens Party, the countrys foreign minister, said, I
believe there are certain human values that are more important than pacifism,
and those are rooted deeply in my conscience.
The NATO campaign in Kosovo marks the first time German forces
have taken part in combat since World War II, touching off protests in that
country (though polls show a majority of Germans support the action). Many have
commented on the irony that it is Germanys traditional peace
parties -- the socialists and the Greens -- that have led the country
into war, justifying the policy on human rights grounds.
The reality of the crisis in the Balkans is also giving some U.S.
peace leaders pause. While few strict pacifists have abandoned that position,
many are at least acknowledging a need for fresh thinking and strategies if
peace efforts are to make any headway in a post-Cold War world.
Analysts involved in the peace movement are calling for more
sophisticated political awareness among members of U.S. peace groups -- a
better grasp of what is happening in conflicts around the world.
U.S. peace groups need to realize that Iraq is not Vietnam,
and Kosovo is not El Salvador, said Ron Pagnucco, assistant professor at
Mount St. Marys College, Emmitsburg, Md., and coordinator of the Pax
Christi USA Peace Studies Group. Viewing these new situations through the
old anti-U.S. intervention prism is inadequate.
Pagnucco, who will join the Department of Peace Studies at the
College of St. Benedict, the sister college of St. Johns University, in
Collegeville, Minn., this fall, said, We need to have new thinking about
what kind of positive role the U.S. can play in these post-Cold War situations,
and -- even more important -- what kind of role international organizations can
play. Up to now, U.S. peace groups have been hampered by a kind of
neo-isolationism, he said -- a reflexive opposition to U.S.
intervention based on its negative results in Vietnam and Latin America.
The peace movement in the United States needs to think ahead
and to define what it sees as Americas role in the world, he said.
Its never adequately come to grips with that.
Further, Pagnucco said, a split has emerged in the historically
strong alliance between peace organizations and human rights groups, with the
latter in some cases -- though normally antiwar -- being more receptive to
military action to stop human rights atrocities in recent conflicts.
Pagnucco thinks that human rights groups and peace organizations
in Europe are more effective than the U.S. peace movement, which tends to focus
too much on U.S. foreign policy at the expense of gaining better understanding
of international affairs.
For example, he said, peace groups tend to criticize
economic sanctions against Iraq, but ignore the gross violations of human
rights in that country. In contrast to human rights groups, they
simply criticize the U.S. role in the sanctions without criticizing the Iraqi
regime, he said.
Kenneth Roth, executive director of Human Rights Watch in New
York, said the split between peace groups and human rights groups had developed
from events in the Balkans -- not Kosovo, but Bosnia and the ethnic cleansing
campaign there in 1995. After the slaughter of 7,000 men in Srebrenica, which
the United Nations had declared a safe zone, Human Rights Watch
called for use of military force to stop the genocide, he said, but the
peace groups were opposed to a military response.
The organization did not advocate military force in the case of
Kosovo. Bosnia was a genocide. It was absolutely clear. Its not yet
clear in Kosovo. Theres a lot we dont know, Roth said.
Our policy is that we will call for military force if that
is all that is available to stop genocide, Roth said. Usually we
are against war, but we believe that pacifism must give way in face of massive
slaughter of innocent civilians, he said. Some wars need to be
fought.
Other human rights groups, including Refugees International, that
were once clearly aligned with the antiwar movement, have called for stronger
military action in Kosovo, even including ground troops.
We dont have all the
answers
Nancy Small, national coordinator for Pax Christi USA, says a
question worth addressing in light of the Balkans is whether the peace movement
is relevant anymore. We recognize we dont have all the
answers, she said. Among the problems are effectiveness and timing, she
said. Pax Christi had been engaged in conflict resolution efforts on the ground
in Kosovo for several years, she said, but in the end, the political crisis
overtook that work.
Rose Marie Berger of Sojourners in Washington finds it ironic that
political leaders have justified the bombing of Serbia on human rights
grounds.
Part of what we are recognizing is that in some ways the
government and military have taken on the language of the churches and peace
movement and turned it into a justification for bombing, Berger said.
Rather than saying we have a strategic military interest in this area,
they have insisted that the primary interest here is a
humanitarian one.
Berger noted that a lot of people are looking at pacifists and
saying, What do you do now? -- that is, how can you protest against
such a war? How can you reject violence that might have been effective in
stopping a campaign of ethnic cleansing? Atrocities are being committed against
whole groups of people. Holocaust survivor Elie Wiesel has been eloquent in
support of the bombing, posing new challenges for people with an absolute
commitment to nonviolence, she said.
But, said Berger, the issues go deeper than a co-opting of
language to a recognition that in a post-superpower world, the
nature of war is also changing. In the foreseeable future, when war is likely
to be driven by rabid nationalism and ethnic conflicts, the
question is, how do we develop foreign policy, military strategy, international
avenues of diplomacy that stabilize regions before we get to the brutality
stage?
Like a lot of things, its four steps forward and six
steps back, Berger said, but I would say that from the Gulf War to
Bosnia, to Rwanda and Kosovo, the peace movement is finally beginning to catch
up and say, Oh. This isnt Vietnam anymore. There is a slow
shift in consciousness that we need to think about these things
differently.
There came to be a strain in the peace movement, out of the
60s, that said if our government is doing it, its wrong. Dont
confuse us with the facts -- with the reasons the government might be taking
this action, she said. Theres still some of the legacy of
that in the Kosovo situation. But that line of thinking is always a dead end.
Its too simplistic; it doesnt deal with contemporary reality.
Brutal and horrible things go on in the world. It requires some changing of
perspective.
What scares people is that they think changing perspective
means giving up pacifism and a commitment to nonviolence. I dont think it
requires that at all. I think it requires some good rethinking. Its
incumbent on people of faith to keep our values current with the
situation.
People who opposed the Vietnam War, who opposed military action on
principle, are now saying, but its not right to stand by and watch
people get slaughtered. That is really helping to spark new dialogue, new
strategic thinking, new creative conversation in the peace community. As Gandhi
said, To use nonviolence as an excuse for cowardice is the worst possible
twisting of the principle.
Peacemaking, she said, should be an act of heroism, not a
mask for nonviolence.
Small said some activists are exploring ways to be more effective
when conflicts disintegrate into war. We dont have an effective way
of responding, she said. Weve talked about establishing a
large-scale nonviolent presence, people going into a region on a large scale
unarmed.
Small noted that nine national organizations, including Pax
Christi, organized a six-week campaign in Haiti in 1993 called Cry for
Justice. About 100 people were trained and sent to Haiti to support
Haitians during the expected return of President Jean-Bertrand Aristide to the
country and the transition to democracy. Several people who were arrested
during that period said their lives had been saved by the presence of outside
witnesses who demanded that human rights be upheld, Small said.
Several of the major peace groups are calling for the United
Nations to take the lead in resolving the crisis in the Balkans. John Dear,
executive director of the Fellowship of Reconciliation, Nyack, N.Y., said his
organization is among those making that proposal. Still, Dear believes the
United States should devote resources and expertise to supporting
nonviolent movements of resistance to oppressive leaders.
There was really a nonviolent leadership in Kosovo a couple
of years ago, he said. The U.S. should have been supporting that
government as it was trying to nonviolently resist Belgrade ... instead of
waiting, then when genocide happens, going in and bombing.
Kathy Kelly of Chicago, co-coordinator of Voices in the
Wilderness, a 3-year-old campaign to end economic sanctions against Iraq, said
she regrets that she didnt give more attention to the ethnic Albanian
resisters in Kosovo.
Paying attention to resistance
There were sustained and costly efforts at nonviolent
resistance, she said. Some say it was one of the strongest
nonviolent efforts against an oppressive government since the Gandhi
movement -- the nonviolent movement that led to Indias independence
from Great Britain. I think a number of people knew this was going on,
but it just wasnt grabbing our attention. At the same time, we can also
trace the outpouring of Serbian dissidents filling streets by the thousands,
tens of thousands, because they were in vigorous disagreement with Slobodan
Milosevic, with his policies. At what point did the United States give any
attention to that resistance?
Im just dealing with the suggestion that the United
States says there were no alternatives to bombing, she said. As for the
future, We as a peace community need to improve vastly in our ability to
move into situations of violence, to help persuade people that it is in their
interest to lay down weapons and begin negotiation, she said.
Kelly envisions for the future large, well-trained but unarmed,
nonviolent armies -- people who go into situations with the
same understanding as a soldier: that they are putting their lives on the
line.
Pax Christis Small is among those who hope for a larger role
for the United Nations and also for deeper exploration of ways the United
States might be involved before conflicts escalate to war. Were
seeing different kinds of conflicts from the Cold War years, she said.
What weve seen in Bosnia, in Rwanda, are civil conflicts. The
question always arises: What should the role of the international community be?
Some would say no role, yet in Rwanda the violence was at a completely
unacceptable level. The world wants to respond but doesnt know
how.
As NCR went to press, many U.S. peace activists were
attending The Hague Peace Appeal, held May 11-15, in the Netherlands to discuss
ways to create a culture of peace in the new millenium. The crisis
in Kosovo was a focus of concern at the worldwide meeting, which marked the
100th anniversary of the first antiwar conference at The Hague.
James A. Everett, director of the Kansas City Interfaith Peace
Alliance, led a delegation of local activists to the meeting, where, he said,
strengthening of international laws and institutions would be high on the
agenda. The entire U.N. charter needs to be thought through, he
said.
Among institutions being promoted by peace and human rights groups
is the proposed International Criminal Court, a permanent tribunal for
prosecuting crimes against humanity and war crimes. The court has been approved
by 120 countries. The United States is the only Western nation opposing the
court, joining such countries as Iran, China, Libya and Algeria.
David Cortright, who teaches at the Joan B. Kroc Institute for
International Peace Studies, University of Notre Dame, believes new strategies
to support humanitarian intervention are needed in the post-Cold
War world. We all realize now that war in this era is civil, related to
ethnic and religious strife, and the old concept of strict nonintervention,
which we inherited from Vietnam and applied in Central America, doesnt
make sense when were faced with a situation like Rwanda, said
Cortright, who also is president of the Fourth Freedom Forum, a private
foundation in Goshen, Ind., dealing with international security issues.
Though Cortright is a pragmatic pacifist -- a
supporter of Christian just war principles, which he is convinced the present
war fails to meet on several grounds -- he also feels that pacifists play an
important role.
They keep us centered on the principle of nonviolence and
the simple principle of compatibility of ends and means: When we employ violent
means, we usually end up with violent results. I think theres a real
value to that position, he said.
National Catholic Reporter, May 21,
1999
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